Chris Kyle: All-American Hero?

[Formaldehyde]

That is because he forgot to cast himself as a caring and responsible human being because he was so rushed for time.

 

[Ice_Tyrant]

Isn't Clint Eastwood that old dude that lost a debate with an empty chair at the GOP Convention?

The Chair with No Name.

Even if he is a silly old man I still love Eastwood. I just enjoy his movies too much. Seems like a decent guy I suppose. That chair thing was great. Nobody remembers anything Mitt Romney said that night. He didn't troll him on purpose, but we are better off for it happening.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yeah, I like his flicks too. But I also like John Wayne flicks except for the one where he forgot and portrayed himself as he actually was as a racist who vehemently hated Indians.

 

[Berzerker]

Oh, well. There you go. He only saw those who fought against this illegal invasion and occupation as "savages", not the relatively small percentage who thought of the US as their saviors instead of their oppressors.

The Kurds and Shia formed a majority and they were not fans of Saddam and probably welcomed his overthrow. But you accused Kyle of calling Iraqis savages when he was referring to combatants.

My "gripe" is how the actual "history" has been intentionally perverted by Clint Eastwood to depict the Iraq War in a clearly cartoonish manner that is still gospel to so many authoritarian conservatives.

Did Kyle's book delve into the history? If he didn't care much about the politics, why would a director inject politics into his story? Eastwood wasn't making a movie about how we were lied into a war, he made a movie about a sniper. If he turned the sniper's story into a political rant about the scumbags who lied us into war he'd risk laying that on Kyle or other soldiers just doing their jobs.

It is not about "soldiers" at all. It is about the glorification of war, even ones which should have never occurred like this one and Grenada. It is about depicting dimwitted bigots and racists who really have no morals, such as Chris Kyle, as those who are extremely concerned and even mortified regarding what they are doing.

Kyle represents the soldiers, it doesn't matter if he lost any sleep about killing people. I suspect his opinion of Iraqis helping him and his brethren was far different than the "savages" blowing the place up.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The Kurds and Shia formed a majority and they were not fans of Saddam and probably welcomed his overthrow. But you accused Kyle of calling Iraqis savages when he was referring to combatants.

Are you actually claiming that no Shiites participated in the attacks on Americans? And even so, how exactly does it make his blatant racism and bigotry in this regard any better? Do you think American soldiers are "savages"?

TDid Kyle's book delve into the history? If he didn't care much about the politics, why would a director inject politics into his story?

Have you ever watched Hearbreak Ridge where Eastwood even glorified Grenada, which was a complete farce that should have never occurred? How about Firefox where he did the usual hatchet job on the Soviets?

Eastwood wasn't making a movie about how we were lied into a war, he made a movie about a sniper. If he turned the sniper's story into a political rant about the scumbags who lied us into war he'd risk laying that on Kyle or other soldiers just doing their jobs.

Do you know anything at all about his politics? Eastwood is a far-right authoritarian warmonger. He even had Chris Kyle find non-existent WMDs!

Kyle represents the soldiers, it doesn't matter if he lost any sleep about killing people. I suspect his opinion of Iraqis helping him and his brethren was far different than the "savages" blowing the place up.

Whatever that is supposed to mean, since it clearly has nothing to do with what I actually stated.

Have you even seen the movie? Or even read any of the articles I posted?

Veteran on ‘American Sniper’: The Lies Chris Kyle Told Are Less Dangerous Than the Lies He Believed

After watching the movie American Sniper, I called a friend named Garett Reppenhagen who was an American sniper in Iraq. He deployed with a cavalry scout unit from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed near FOB Warhorse. I asked him if he thought this movie really mattered. “Every portrayal of a historical event should be historically accurate,” he explained. ”A movie like this is a cultural symbol that influences the way people remember history and feel about war.”

Garett and I met through our antiwar and veteran support work, which he’s been involved with for almost a decade. He served in Iraq. I served in Afghanistan. But both of us know how powerful mass media and mass culture are. They shaped how we thought of the wars when we joined, so we felt it was important to tell our stories when we came home and spoke out.

I commend Chris Kyle for telling his story in his book American Sniper. The scariest thing I did while in the military was come home and tell my story to the public—the good, the bad and the ugly. I feel that veterans owe it to society to tell their stories, and civilians owe it to veterans to actively listen. Dr. Ed Tick, a psychotherapist who has specialized in veteran care for four decades, explains, “In all traditional and classical societies, returned warriors served many important psychosocial functions. They were keepers of dark wisdom for their cultures, witnesses to war’s horrors from personal experience who protected and discouraged, rather than encouraged, its outbreak again.”

Chris Kyle didn’t view Iraq like me and Garett, but neither of us have attacked him for it. He’s not the problem. We don’t care about the lies that Chris Kyle may or may not have told. They don’t matter. We care about the lies that Chris Kyle believed. The lie that Iraq was culpable for September 11. The lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The lie that people do evil things because they are evil.

The film American Sniper is also rife with lies. This was not Chris Kyle’s story. And Bradley Cooper was not Chris Kyle. It was Jason Hall’s story, a one-time actor in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and screenwriter for “American Sniper,” who called his film a “character study.” Don’t believe him. His movie is as fictional as Buffy Summers.

In the movie’s first scene, Cooper faces a moral dilemma that never happened in real life. Cooper suspects a boy is preparing to send an improvised explosive device, or IED, toward a convoy of approaching Marines on the streets of Fallujah. Either he kills a child or the child kills Marines. A soldier next to Cooper warns, “They’ll send your ass to Leavenworth if you’re wrong.” In writing this line, Hall implies that killing civilians is a war crime and U.S. military members are sent to prison for it. If U.S. soldiers, including Kyle, don’t seem to be getting punished for killing civilians, then they must not be killing civilians.

Garett and I agreed that even if that boy was a civilian, nothing would have happened to Cooper for shooting him. Both of us were trained to take detailed notes with the understanding that if something went wrong, it would be corrected in the report. Americans were responsible for thousands of Iraqi deaths and almost none were held accountable.

During one incident in Iraq, Garett was involved in a firefight that left six to seven civilians dead. He received his orders from an intelligence officer who got his intelligence wrong. He led Garett and a small convoy to an Iraqi deputy governor’s compound, which was supposedly under attack. As the convoy approached, the soldiers spotted a cluster of trucks with armed Iraqis. The armed Iraqis saw the American convoy inching closer, but they didn’t fire. It seemed obvious to Garett that these Iraqis were not who the intelligence officer was looking for. Then the officer screamed, “Fire!” Confused, no one in the convoy pulled their triggers. “I said fire goddamn it!” Someone fired, and all hell broke loose. In the ensuing chaos, one of the Iraqi trucks struck a civilian seeking cover on the sidewalk. As it turned out, those armed Iraqis were the deputy governor’s own security detail. The officer didn’t go to Leavenworth.

In Hall and Cooper’s Fallujah, it’s as if the Americans just found a city that was already laid to waste. The movie leaves out America’s bombardment of Fallujah. An officer explains that the city has been evacuated, so any military-aged male remaining must be an insurgent. Conveniently, every Iraqi that Cooper kills happens to be carrying a rifle or burying an IED, even though the real Chris Kyle wrote that he was told to shoot anymilitary-aged male. Obviously, every non-insurgent did not evacuate Fallujah.

“Many Iraqis didn’t have cars or other transportation,” Garett explained. “To get to the nearest town, you’d have to walk across very hot desert, and you wouldn’t be able to carry much. So a lot of residents just decided to stay indoors and wait it out. It’d be like telling people in San Antonio that they have to walk to El Paso; then they come back home and their city is bombed and contaminated with depleted uranium.”

So what brought Bradley Cooper’s character to Iraq? Early in the film, Hall sets the stage for the moral theme of the movie. When Cooper was a child he sat at a kitchen table with his father, who explained that there are only three types of people in the world: sheep who believe “evil doesn’t exist,” wolves who prey on the sheep, and sheepdogs who are “blessed with aggression” and protect the sheep. In this world, when Cooper watches the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings on television, there is only one explanation: just evil wolves being evil. So he joins the military. When Cooper watches September 11 on television, there is one explanation: just evil wolves being evil. So he goes to war with them.

Amazingly, Hall and Cooper’s war seems to have absolutely nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. It’s about al-Qaida, which in real life followed the United States into Iraq after we invaded. Cooper’s war also seems to have nothing to do with helping Iraqis, only killing them. Except for the military’s interpreters, every Iraqi in the movie — including the women and children — are either evil, butchering insurgents or collaborators. The sense is that there isn’t a single innocent Iraqi in the war. They’re all “savages.”

Finally, it seems that a voice of criticism will be heard through the character of Marc Lee. When Lee voices his skepticism, Cooper asks, “Do you want them to attack San Diego or New York?” Cooper somehow wins with that absurd question. Later in the film, Navy SEAL Ryan Job is shot in the face. Distraught, Cooper decides he should lead a group of SEALs back out to avenge Job’s death, which is portrayed as the heroic thing to do. While Lee and Cooper are clearing a building, an Iraqi sniper shoots Lee in the head. The audience is then at Lee’s funeral, where his mother is reading the last letter that Lee sent home expressing criticism of the war. On the road home, Cooper’s wife asks him what he thought about the letter. “That letter killed Marc,” Cooper responds. “He let go, and he paid the price for it.” What makes Cooper a hero, according to the film, is that he’s a sheepdog. In Jason Hall’s world, Lee stops being a sheepdog when he questions his actions in Iraq. He becomes a sheep, “and he paid the price for it” with a bullet from a wolf.

Hall claims his film is a character study, yet he shamelessly butchered Marc Lee’s real story (and part of Kyle’s) to promote his moral fantasy world and deny legitimacy to veterans critical of the war. Here’s the truth: On the day that the real Ryan Job was shot, the real Marc Lee died after stepping into the line of fire twice to save Job’s life, which apparently was either not “sheepdog” enough to portray accurately in the movie or would have taken the focus off of Cooper’s reckless heroics. You can’t have people believe that critical soldiers are actually not sheep, can you? And as it turns out, Kyle never said those things about Lee’s letter and never blamed Lee for his own death for being skeptical of the war. (Here is Marc Lee’s actual last letter home in full.)

Chris Kyle was like so many soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He believed in doing the right thing and was willing to give his life for it. That trait that drives many veterans is a truly special one I wish we all had. Was Kyle wrong that the Iraq War had anything to do with September 11, protecting Americans, seizing weapons of mass destruction, or liberating Iraqis? Without a doubt. But that’s what he was told and he genuinely believed it — an important insight into how good people are driven to work for bad causes. Was Kyle wrong for calling Iraqis “savages”? Of course. In one interview, he admits that Iraqis probably view him as a “savage,” but that in war he needed to dehumanize people to kill them — another important insight into how humans tolerate killing, which was left out of the movie.

So enough about Chris Kyle. Let’s talk about Cooper and Hall, and the culture industry that recycles propagandistic fiction under the guise of a “true story.” And let’s focus our anger and our organizing against the authorities and the institutions that craft the lies that the Chris Kyles of the world believe, that have created a trail of blowback leading from dumb war to dumb war, and that have sent 2.5 million veterans to fight a “war on terror” that persists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Pakistan. Critics and nonviolent organizers can be sheepdogs too.

War isn't a Hollywood movie. Especially a bad one directed by a clearly bigoted far-right authoritarian.

 

[Berzerker]

Are you actually claiming that no Shiites participated in the attacks on Americans?

No, I'm challenging your assertion about the low level of support we had for ousting Saddam

Have you ever watched Hearbreak Ridge where Eastwood even glorified Grenada, which was a complete farce that should have never occurred? How about Firefox where he did the usual hatchet job on the Soviets?

I saw them both, didn't get the impression Grenada was glorified

Do you know anything at all about his politics? Eastwood is a far-right authoritarian warmonger. He even had Chris Kyle find non-existent WMDs!

What did he find?

Whatever that is supposed to mean, since it clearly has nothing to do with what I actually stated.

You said it wasn't about soldiers at all

Have you even seen the movie? Or even read any of the articles I posted?

No... and I quoted your article, Kyle didn't call Iraqis savages. You did, not your article.

 

[Formaldehyde]

No, I'm challenging your assertion about the low level of support we had for ousting Saddam

It quickly became close to none at all.

Or don't you remember them adamantly insisting we leave their country immediately? How the average Iraqi wanted Hussein back again because he was far superior to the incompetent warmongering Americans who kept "accidentally" killing members of their families.

I saw them both, didn't get the impression Grenada was glorified

Well, there you go. The war was a complete farce. Yet there was Eastwood making a movie about how "Gunney" saved the world from a handful of Cubans. But you don't think it was glorified into something it clearly was not.

What did he find?

He supposedly found arms. But based on the number of lies that Kyle has been caught making, nothing he said should have any credibility at all.

You said it wasn't about soldiers at all

It is about a fantasy world created by those who never stepped foot into Iraq. It is a Hollywood movie glrofying warmongering just like all the rest with the same simplistic and cartoonish depiction of war.

No... and I quoted your article, Kyle didn't call Iraqis savages. You did, not your article.

As the article I just posted made quite clear:

Cooper’s war also seems to have nothing to do with helping Iraqis, only killing them. Except for the military’s interpreters, every Iraqi in the movie — including the women and children — are either evil, butchering insurgents or collaborators. The sense is that there isn’t a single innocent Iraqi in the war. They’re all “savages.”

This is pure unadulterated propaganda that was bought up by the American far-right hook, line, and sinker. It had every single one of their dog whistles in massive amounts.

And you didn't answer my question. Do you think all American soldiers are "savages" or not?

 

[Berzerker]

It quickly became close to none at all.

Or don't you remember them adamantly insisting we leave their country immediately? How the average Iraqi wanted Hussein back again because he was far superior to the incompetent warmongering Americans who kept "accidentally" killing members of their families.

That was several years after the invasion and after the Shia had consolidated their hold on the government. Did the Kurds want us to leave? No... How about the general Shia population? That was more divided since the civil war was being fought primarily in their neighborhoods. I'll bet opinions have changed since we did leave, the civil war has resumed in full. Nevertheless, your "small %" is way off.

Well, there you go. The war was a complete farce. Yet there was Eastwood making a movie about how "Gunney" saved the world from a handful of Cubans. But you don't think it was glorified into something it clearly was not.

But the movie didn't have him saving the world, far from it.

He supposedly found arms. But based on the number of lies that Kyle has been caught making, nothing he said should have any credibility at all.

Was he alone when the stuff was found?

As the article I just posted made quite clear:

So you dont have a quote from Kyle calling Iraqis savages... I know.

And you didn't answer my question. Do you think all American soldiers are "savages" or not?

Did you edit that question into your post 1 minute before mine? I sure dont remember seeing it, but it would be nice if you made a habit of answering questions... Your habit is ignoring them. No, I dont...

 

[Kyriakos]

That's funny. I have exactly the opposite opinions. Jesse is extremely bright and largely misunderstood if you don't watch him in person. He was also was awarded $1.8M in damages.

Watch this video and make up your own mind which one is telling the truth:


Link to video.

Jesse Ventura on ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle: ‘Do You Think the Nazis Have Heroes?’

Jesse is an extremely likable guy if you actually listen to what he has to say on a plethora of different topics.

That was just utter malarkey concocted by Eastwood to try to make Chris Kyle into something other than a reprehensible and incredibly one-dimensional racist and bigot. His first kill was apparently a woman, but there was no kid present as depicted in the movie.

That is good because it clearly isn't. It is pure propaganda masquerading as a "loose" biography.

I haven't listened to much of Ventura, but he does come across as a decent person. Besides, he 'ain't got time to bleed'

Btw, there is no way in hell that Kyle could have had 'knocked down' Ventura, and with one punch as in his fairytale. Let's be rational here... Ventura would have squashed him.

 

[Formaldehyde]

He is really quite entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed his press conferences while he was successfully running for the governor of Minnesota against all odds.

Here's a few recent examples where he discusses current events:


Link to video.

These guys are all white so they got away with it. Can you imagine for one moment if it had been a massive group of black men standing with assault weapons out in the open?

But I have to laugh. Are you kidding me? We would have called out the National Guard.

I would prefer us to have peaceful settlements, peaceful resolutions and keep weapons on the back burner unless they are truly needed.

And right now the last thing we need are people running around with assault weapons and camis because what if something goes wrong? What if a shot does get fired? Are we then going to have an all-out internal war?

Makes me uncomfortable though. Whenever I see people running around with backpacks on, and weapons, and all that, what's next? Maybe they will be strapping on a few grenades too. What's wrong with that picture?

A few more that are just as entertaining:


Link to video.


Link to video.

How could you not like an ex-professional wrestler who likes to wear hippie T-shirts?

 

[Kyriakos]

He is really quite entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed his press conferences while he was successfully running for the governor of Minnesota against all odds.

[...]

A few more that are just as entertaining:


Link to video.
[...]

Ventura for president

 

[Formaldehyde]

Ventura for president

Wasn't that glorious?

Cenk Uygar blasts "pure propaganda".

Warning: This clip contains many bad words being uttered, so NSFW!


Link to video.

 

[abradley]

{Snip}

And a reply from a Navy Seal:

A Navy SEAL Responds To Garett Reppenhagen’s Criticism of “American Sniper” February 2nd, 2015 21
Guest post by Jared Ogden

{Snip}

I think Mr. Reppenhagen’s opinion of the movie is off-base and fails to grasp the true message in "American Sniper." Regardless, Chris Kyle is a hero. He was murdered while providing service to those who served and is a role model. Clint Eastwood nailed this movie and if you think American Sniper is about war, you’re wrong. It’s about the toll war takes the operator and the stress combat deployments create on those we leave at home.

For further discussion regarding this and more, please follow @JaredWOgden.

The whole article is worth a read.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Only you got the wrong guy. That was written by Brock McIntosh, not Garett Reppenhagen.

This is Garrett's statement:

I was an American sniper, and Chris Kyle’s war was not my war

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the hit movie captures the truth of the Iraq conflict. I should know. I lived it

I spent nights in Iraq lying prone and looking through a 12-power sniper scope. You only see a limited view between the reticles. That’s why it’s necessary to keep both eyes open. This way you have some ability to track targets and establish 360 degrees of awareness. I rotated with my spotter and an additional security team member to maintain vigilance and see the whole battlefield. I scrutinized every target in my scope to determine if they were a threat.

In a way, it’s an analogy for keeping the whole Iraq mission in perspective and fully understanding the experiences of the U.S. war fighters during Operation Iraqi Freedom. No single service member has the monopoly on the war narrative. It will change depending on where you serve, when you were there, what your role was, and a few thousand other random elements.

For the past 10 days, “American Sniper” has rallied crowds and broken box office records, but if you want to understand the war, the film is like peering into a sniper scope — it offers a very limited view.

The movie tells the story of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, said to have 160 confirmed kills, which would make him the most lethal American military member in history. He first shared his story in a memoir, which became the basis for Clint Eastwood’s film adaptation. Kyle views the occupation of Iraq as necessary to stop terrorists from coming to the mainland and attacking the U.S.; he sees the Iraqis as “savages” and attacks any critical thought about the overall mission and the military’s ability to accomplish it.

This portrayal is not unrealistic. My unit had plenty of soldiers who thought like that. When you are sacrificing so much, it’s tempting to believe so strongly in the “noble cause,” a belief that gets hardened by the fatigue of multiple tours and whatever is going on at home. But viewing the war only through his eyes gives us too narrow a frame.

During my combat tour I never saw the Iraqis as “savages.” They were a friendly culture who believed in hospitality, and were sometimes positive to a fault. The people are proud of their history, education system and national identity. I have listened to children share old-soul wisdom, and I have watched adults laugh and play with the naiveté of schoolboys. I met some incredible Iraqis during and after my deployment, and it is shameful to know that the movie has furthered ignorance that might put them in danger.

Unlike Chris Kyle, who claimed his PTSD came from the inability to save more service members, most of the damage to my mental health was what I call “moral injury,” which is becoming a popular term in many veteran circles.

As a sniper I was not usually the victim of a traumatic event, but the perpetrator of violence and death. My actions in combat would have been more acceptable to me if I could cloak myself in the belief that the whole mission was for a greater good. Instead, I watched as the purpose of the mission slowly unraveled.

I served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During that time, we started to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, the 9/11 commission report determined that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, false sovereignty was given to Iraq by Paul Bremer, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were exposed, and the Battle of Fallujah was waged.

The destruction I took part in suddenly intersected with news that our reasons for waging war were untrue. The despicable conduct of those at Abu Ghraib was made more unforgivable by the honorable interactions I had with Iraqi civilians, and, together, it fueled the post-traumatic stress I struggle with today.

My war was completely different than Chris Kyle’s war. That doesn’t mean his war is wrong, and mine was right. But it does mean that no one experience is definitive.

The movie depicts compounded action scenes with very little political and regional context. It was a conscious decision by Clint Eastwood, apparently, to leave out the cause of the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. It was a conscious decision, apparently, for multiple characters to describe the Iraqis as “savages” and never show any alternative. When I heard of the bigoted reaction some Americans had after watching the film, I was disgusted, but not surprised. Audience members are mistaking Chris Kyle’s view of the war as “the” story about the war. No wonder someone tweeted that the movie made them “want to go kill some ragheads.” It’s sad that such a nearsighted portrayal of Iraqis has caused more people to fear Arabs and glorify violence against them.

It would be refreshing if a big Hollywood movie would take on the task of creating a less dramatized, more nuanced version of warfare. There are some incredible documentaries on the subject. “Occupation: Dreamland” and “Restrepo” capture the life of a service member in a modern deployment without sugarcoating the hard political environment that is a backdrop to the conflicts.

The responsibility to make a picture that takes into account all of the political and social dynamics might not rest on any individual filmmaker. After all, it is just a movie. But that means the public should treat it like that, and educate themselves before jumping to a conclusion that the whole war was just like that. Especially if they support the democratic ideals that Chis Kyle, me and every veteran who put on a uniform swore an oath to defend with our lives.

If you really want to be a patriotic American, keep both eyes open and maintain 360 degrees of awareness. Don’t simply watch “American Sniper.” Read other sources, watch other films about the conflict. Talk to as many veterans as you can, get a full perspective on the war experience and the consequences. Ensure the perceived enemy in your vision is what it seems.

That is the difference between someone who served because he had made the commitment previously to do so when needed. Someone who suffers from PTSD because he killed so many people as a sniper in the relative safety of a rooftop. And those who signed up to "kill towelheads", or like Chris Kyle who saw all his supposed enemies as "savages". One belongs in the service because he served honorably and had the intelligence and morality to be able to understand what he was actually doing. The others should have been screened out long before they ever had a weapon put into their hands, much less before they came into contact with "savages" or given the opportunity to execute "towelheads".

Chris Kyle is no "hero". He is a liar who should never have served in the first place based on his own ghost-written book.

 

[BvBPL]

Ventura for president

He's American politics' most adorable gun nut!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Berzerker]

or like Chris Kyle who saw all his supposed enemies as "savages".

at least you've narrowed that down from Iraqis

 

[Formaldehyde]

He's American politics' most adorable gun nut!

"Gun nuts" make fun of Oath Keepers and see the hypocrisy of blacks not being able to do the same thing? Really?

at least you've narrowed that down from Iraqis

"At least" everybody else who was actually there whose opinions I have posted think he meant it to cover all Iraqis. But what do they know compared to you?

 

[BvBPL]

"Gun nuts" make fun of Oath Keepers and see the hypocrisy of blacks not being able to do the same thing? Really?

Gun nuts oppose firearm registration.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Formaldehyde]

Touche.

But at least he is a lovable gun nut and some of his other views aren't quite so wacky:

So I support waiting periods and training requirements for gun ownership, and I like the idea that is shouldn’t be incredibly easy to get guns. I support the right to carry concealed weapons, but I think people who want a concealed-weapons permit need to pass a training and safety course. The Constitution calls for a “well-regulated militia.” In other words, you need to know how to use your weapon, and practice with it.

 

[Berzerker]

"At least" everybody else who was actually there whose opinions I have posted think he meant it to cover all Iraqis. But what do they know compared to you?

Your first article didn't accuse Kyle of calling Iraqis savages, you did that. I know you took something Kyle said about combatants and twisted it into a general indictment of Iraqis. Thats all I need to know, I dont give a damn if somebody you quoted agrees with you. Yeah, everybody I quote agrees with me.